Nicola Beer | |
|---|---|
 Beer in 2016 | |
| Vice-President of the European Parliament | |
| In office 2 July 2019 – 31 December 2023 Serving with See List | |
| President | David Sassoli Roberta Metsola |
| Deputy Leader of the Free Democratic Party | |
| In office 26 April 2019 – 22 April 2023 Serving with Wolfgang Kubicki andJohannes Vogel | |
| Leader | Christian Lindner |
| Preceded by | Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann |
| Succeeded by | Bettina Stark-Watzinger |
| General Secretary of the Free Democratic Party | |
| In office 7 December 2013 – 26 April 2019 | |
| Leader | Christian Lindner |
| Preceded by | Patrick Döring |
| Succeeded by | Linda Teuteberg |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office 2 July 2019 – 31 December 2023 | |
| Succeeded by | Michael Kauch |
| Constituency | Germany |
| Member of theBundestag forHesse | |
| In office 24 October 2017 – 30 June 2019 | |
| Succeeded by | Peter Heidt |
| Constituency | FDP List |
| Minister of Education and Religious Affairs ofHesse | |
| In office 31 May 2012 – 18 January 2014 | |
| Prime Minister | Volker Bouffier |
| Preceded by | Dorothea Henzler |
| Succeeded by | Ralph Alexander Lorz |
| State Secretary for Justice, Integration and European Affairs ofHesse | |
| In office 5 February 2009 – 31 May 2012 | |
| Prime Minister | Roland Koch Volker Bouffier |
| Preceded by | Thomas Schäfer(Justice) |
| Succeeded by | Zsuzsa Breier |
| Member of theLandtag of Hesse | |
| In office 18 January 2014 – 31 October 2017 | |
| Succeeded by | Wiebke Knell |
| In office 5 April 1999 – 5 February 2009 | |
| Succeeded by | Jochen Paulus |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1970-01-23)23 January 1970 (age 55) Wiesbaden,West Germany |
| Political party | |
| Alma mater | University of Frankfurt |
Nicola Beer (born 23 January 1970) is a German lawyer and politician of theFree Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as a vice president of theEuropean Investment Bank since 2024, under the leadership of presidentNadia Calviño.
Earlier in her career, Beer was aMember of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2023, where she served as one of itsVice-Presidents. She previously was a member of theBundestag from 2017 to 2019 and part of her party's leadership.
Beer finished highschool with a bilingual degree in German and French in 1989. She went on to study law at theUniversity of Frankfurt from 1991 until 1997.
Beer became a member of the FDP in 1991. She was first elected as member of theState Parliament of Hesse in the1999 state elections. Between 2008 and 2009, she served as deputy chairperson of the FDP parliamentary group, under the leadership of chairmanJörg-Uwe Hahn.
In the cabinets of minister-presidentsRoland Koch andVolker Bouffier, Beer served as State Secretary for European Affairs at the Hessian State Ministry of Justice between 2009 and 2012. In this capacity, she represented Hesse on theEuropean Committee of the Regions. Between 2012 and 2014 she was State Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs in Hesse.[1] During her time in office, Beer was one of several politicians, professors and teachers who successfully pushed for German public schools offering classes in Islam to primary school students using state-trained teachers and specially written textbooks.[2]
Beer was a FDP delegate to theFederal Convention for the purpose of electing thePresident of Germany in 2004, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2017.
In late 2013, incoming FDP chairmanChristian Lindner nominated Beer for the office of Secretary General; on 7 December 2013 she got elected (with 84.3% of all votes.[3] At the political convention of the FDP on 15 May 2015 she got reelected with 88.4% of all votes.[4]
Ahead of the2017 elections, Beer was elected to lead her party’s campaign in the state of Hesse.[5] In the – unsuccessful – negotiations to form acoalition government with the Christian Democrats – both theChristian Democratic Union (CDU) and theChristian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) – and theGreen Party, she was part of her party's delegation.[6] She later became a member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment.
In September 2018, Beer announced that she would lead the FDP list and run for a parliamentary seat in the2019 European elections.[7] Led byMargrethe Vestager, she was among the seven-strong “Team Europe” that the centristAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party picked to spearhead its pro-EU, liberal campaign ahead of the elections.[8] Shortly before the vote, she joined 70 current and former EU leaders – including all the main parties’ lead candidates – calling for a female president of theEuropean Commission orEuropean Council and a gender-balanced leadership.[9]
Following her election, Beer was part of a cross-party working group in charge of drafting the European Parliament's four-year work program on digitization.[10] In parliament, she served as aVice-President; she was part of its leadership under PresidentsDavid Sassoli (2019–2022) andRoberta Metsola (2022–2023).[11] She also joined theCommittee on Industry, Research and Energy, where she has served asrapporteur on theCritical Raw Materials Act.[12] From 2021, she was part of the Parliament's delegation to theConference on the Future of Europe.[13]
From 2019 to 2023, Beer served as one of the three deputies ofChristian Lindner in his capacity as FDP chairman.
In the negotiations to form a so-calledtraffic light coalition of theSocial Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and the FDP following the2021 federal elections, Beer led her party's delegation in the working group on European affairs; her co-chairs from the other parties wereUdo Bullmann andFranziska Brantner.[14]
In 2023, Beer was nominated by the government ofChancellorOlaf Scholz to become one of the vice-presidents of theEuropean Investment Bank (EIB).[15]
Beer has repeatedly publiclydenied the consensus of climate science onextreme weather events.[21] For example, Beer spoke in a tweet in 2017 of the "alleged occurrence of more extreme weather events" using thehashtag "#Fakenews".[21] In a statement, Beer described the "causality of extreme weather situations and climate change" as "scientifically refuted".[21] In contrast to Beer's statement, the greater magnitude and probability of "extreme weather events" has been deemed to be linked to human activity since theIPCC Sixth Assessment Report.[22]
Beer has been an outspoken proponent ofTaiwan’sindependence; in 2022, she made an official trip to Taipeh and met withPresidentTsai Ing-wen.[23][24]
Beer is a mother oftwins. In 2001, she separated from the children's father, fellow FDP politician Volker Stein.[25] Since 2018, she has been married to lawyer Jürgen Illing.
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